Mota called a veve, in Motlav vev, a word which in itself signifies division. Those who are of one veve are said to be tavala ima to the others, that is 'of the other side of the house.' A woman who marries does not come over to her husband's side of the house; she is said to be ape mateima, 'at the door,' the doors being at the ends of the native houses; nor does the husband go over to the wife's side; the children belong to mother's side. All of the same 'side of the house' are sogoi to one another. Hence a man's children are not his sogoi, his kindred; his nearest relations are his sister's children. There is no account seriously given of the origin of the two divisions in the Banks' Islands. Within the two veve there are certain families among the Banks' Island people, the members of which have a certain family pride, and endeavour to keep up by intermarriage the family connexion. The best known of these is the Lo Sepere family, from the place of that name in Vanua Lava, where Qat is believed to have lived.[1] Adoption is common, and has no particular significance. Childless parents naturally adopt a child of kin to the wife, so that the adopted child occupies the position of one born in the house; but if, as sometimes happens, an orphan child from the husband's kin is adopted out of pity, it is brought up as of kin to the wife, and care is taken to conceal the fact of adoption. When the child grows up and by some chance finds out that he has been brought up on the wrong 'side of the house,' he will leave his foster parents, and go and live with his own sogoi. Much grief and bitterness is caused by such a discovery.
In Aurora, Maewo, the nearest of the New Hebrides to the Banks' Islands, with one of which, Merlav, there is a good deal of communication, the members of the two divisions
- ↑ The Lo Sepere family of Vanua Lava is the same with the Tupueviga of Gaua and the Anamele of Mota. On the other side of the house the Tapulia of Gaua and Merlav are counted the same with three groups at Mota, viz. Alo Gapmaras of Takelvarea, the Wotawota of Maligo, and the Liwotuqe of Gatava. These family groups lie within the veve, but do not take in all the veve; neither side of the house is exhaustively divided into family groups.
